The diverse foundations of International Human Rights Standards

In the discussion that follows, various nuances and qualifications are presented to the thesis that it is a myth that human rights are a Western invention, including a strong reaffirmation that while the West may have played the leading role in the legal codification of international standards, the ethical basis for human rights is abundantly present in Muslim and Middle Eastern cultures. However, there is an insistence that in the concept of rights, which are due to every human being by virtue of that person's humanity, there is an important departure from Islamic traditions of rights existing as a product of membership in a particular category of religion or gender.